Living Here
First off I'm sorry I haven't been posting much; internet access is expensive and far from home. I have been spending most of my time volunteering at the Hesed (Jewish elderly welfare center) and walking the city. By volunteering I mean giving presentations about myself and my project to old people at the Day Care center and helping the PR office by translating a long document from horrible English (translated from bad French) to better English. Also, I have been sick with a bad cough for a few days which has greatly lowered my productivity.
Little by little I am discovering what it's like to live in St. Petersburg. I live on Vasilevsky Ostrov (Vasilevsky Island) which is much less touristy than the main island. Most of it is residential, but there are lots of stores and bars and restaurants on the main prospects and the main university buildings are situated on the Neva river embankment on this island. Where I live reminds me a lot of areas of Brooklyn like Kings Highway or Ocean Parkway. The pedestrian-only street below is right by the metro stop nearest my apartment (or the room I'm renting in an apartment). When it's at all moderately nice out the benches and streets are lined with people drinking beers and playing guitar and being happy and drunk, which is a nice sight when I'm coming home from a long day or a long night.
I am learning slowly what it means to be cool in St. Petersburg. The young men below are in my files. They are dancing in an "alternative" bar/club for the youngsters called "Novus". Meanwhile, I am sitting on a couch observing and taking notes on how to be cool.
The very center of the city, centered around Nevsky prospect, is split up by a few major semi-circular canals which look like this. They don't smell as bad as the ones in Venice, but they do smell like boat gasoline and the noise pollution from the bullhorn-armed tour group leaders is sure to get worse as the summer approaches. Still, the vies down the canals are really beautiful against the usually very dramatic sky. There are lots of rainbows here and the weather is reminiscent of London or Galway; one minute it's pouring and the next it's sunny. Usually it's humid.
The Church on Spilt Blood is the most ornate and colorful, inside and outside, of all of the St. Petersburg churches. From the outside it looks a bit like the Kremlin, though it's much smaller. Its name comes from the fact that it was built on the location of Alexander II's death (he was assasinated in a terrorist bomb attack). As you can see, one of the city's canals passes just along side it.
Located on Nevsky Prospect, this is the most beautiful supermarket I've ever seen. Unfortunately, Ira says it's threatening to close down because people aren't shopping here (since the products are the same as in other supermarkets, just more expensive).
Ira's brother and parents live in Kolpino, a town south of the city but still considered part of St. Petersburg, and they take trips there for the weekends to relax and get some family time. This weekend I went with them. The highlights of the trip were meeting Genya's adorable little cousin and his fiesty grandmother (she's exactly what you'd expect of an over 70 year-old still-working high school physical education teacher).
Below: watching Genya's 8-year-old cousin, David, perform in a musical play. He's the one in the black hat all the way on the right. David played sort of a black cat-count-master of ceremonies type. I didn't understand much of the material, which I think was quite philisophically oriented and used big Russian words. Ira sat next to me and said she also had no idea what was going on. The moral of the thing was that we should all remain kids and live in fairy land, but the director/teacher/writer apparently had something of her own in mind.
Little by little I am discovering what it's like to live in St. Petersburg. I live on Vasilevsky Ostrov (Vasilevsky Island) which is much less touristy than the main island. Most of it is residential, but there are lots of stores and bars and restaurants on the main prospects and the main university buildings are situated on the Neva river embankment on this island. Where I live reminds me a lot of areas of Brooklyn like Kings Highway or Ocean Parkway. The pedestrian-only street below is right by the metro stop nearest my apartment (or the room I'm renting in an apartment). When it's at all moderately nice out the benches and streets are lined with people drinking beers and playing guitar and being happy and drunk, which is a nice sight when I'm coming home from a long day or a long night.
I am learning slowly what it means to be cool in St. Petersburg. The young men below are in my files. They are dancing in an "alternative" bar/club for the youngsters called "Novus". Meanwhile, I am sitting on a couch observing and taking notes on how to be cool.
The very center of the city, centered around Nevsky prospect, is split up by a few major semi-circular canals which look like this. They don't smell as bad as the ones in Venice, but they do smell like boat gasoline and the noise pollution from the bullhorn-armed tour group leaders is sure to get worse as the summer approaches. Still, the vies down the canals are really beautiful against the usually very dramatic sky. There are lots of rainbows here and the weather is reminiscent of London or Galway; one minute it's pouring and the next it's sunny. Usually it's humid.The Church on Spilt Blood is the most ornate and colorful, inside and outside, of all of the St. Petersburg churches. From the outside it looks a bit like the Kremlin, though it's much smaller. Its name comes from the fact that it was built on the location of Alexander II's death (he was assasinated in a terrorist bomb attack). As you can see, one of the city's canals passes just along side it.Located on Nevsky Prospect, this is the most beautiful supermarket I've ever seen. Unfortunately, Ira says it's threatening to close down because people aren't shopping here (since the products are the same as in other supermarkets, just more expensive).Ira's brother and parents live in Kolpino, a town south of the city but still considered part of St. Petersburg, and they take trips there for the weekends to relax and get some family time. This weekend I went with them. The highlights of the trip were meeting Genya's adorable little cousin and his fiesty grandmother (she's exactly what you'd expect of an over 70 year-old still-working high school physical education teacher).Below: watching Genya's 8-year-old cousin, David, perform in a musical play. He's the one in the black hat all the way on the right. David played sort of a black cat-count-master of ceremonies type. I didn't understand much of the material, which I think was quite philisophically oriented and used big Russian words. Ira sat next to me and said she also had no idea what was going on. The moral of the thing was that we should all remain kids and live in fairy land, but the director/teacher/writer apparently had something of her own in mind.
Below Genya and his little cousin, "Little Brother David", who is very charming and as instantly lovable and adorable as he looks. And I hate kids. Those little yellow-wrapped candies you can see near the pillow are my favorite Russian candies called "Korovka" or "Little Cow". They have a soft caramel center, but the outside is a slightly hardened, kind of grainy caramel reminiscent of hardened honey. They are amazing and so much better than all of the other chocolate-containing candies (all named after animals and Russian fairytale characters).
On the way back from Kolpina Ira and I stopped at the monument-museum of the Siege of Leningrad. The monument you see in the photo below depicts a soldier on the left and a worker on the right. Together, the civilian and the soldier defended the city during the 900 day blockade, during which over 600,000 people died of hunger alone.
posted by duckie at 12:32 PM
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